Night Vision
by Broshark
Summary: Humans don't have the best night vision. Yang learns about this fact of life when confessing to Blake, after journeying all the way to Menagerie to tell her exactly how she feels.
1. Chapter 1

Yang was dying.

She couldn't breathe, all the air was escaping from her lungs and her body was unable to make the requisite muscle spasms to replenish it. Instead, her heart was racing uncontrollably.

Even though she had dashed along streets and rooftops from her hotel for several miles, that wasn't the reason. She was a Huntress, something as simple as that barely registered in her aura.

No, what was making her heart race was the house that towered before her.

After so many days crying in her room until she worked through her feelings, after traveling so many hundreds – no, thousands – of miles to get here, she was so close to her goal it was almost like a dream. Now that she was here, she finally felt the monumental weight of what she was planning, as though it were crushing her chest with the force of a dozen Paladins.

Gritting her teeth, she punched her iron fist into the palm of her other hand, snapping herself back into reality at the slight pain as her aura absorbed the impact.

She was Yang Xiao Long.

She was the one who burned like the sun.

She could do this.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

The air was her resurrection, returning her to life as she inhaled deeply of the night air. The past didn't matter, all that mattered were the present and the future. A future with Blake.

She had been broken when her partner ran away, had left her alone, but countless days of doing nothing but training and thinking had fixed that. She understood everything now. Or at least she felt like she did. And belief, Yang knew, was one hell of a force of nature.

With a degree of stealth one might not expect from someone so hotheaded, Yang made her way up to the house. The hot Menagerie night meant that the windows were open to let in air, which was perfect for her. Peeking in, and with the help of the faint moonlight, she saw the silhouette of a lithe girl resting on her bed. Not just a girl, a woman. It had been over half a year since she had seen the object of her affection, after all.

Steeling her resolve, she stepped into the house and closer to her target. When she was alongside the bed, she brought herself to her knees and gently touched the girl's shoulder.

"Blake," she whispered tenderly.

"Hrmm," the other woman started, only to be cut off by the blonde bombshell.

"Blake, please, just listen to me, I need to say this before I lose my nerve, okay?" Yang said quickly. "I love you. I love you in every way. Not just as teammate. Or as a partner. Or as a friend. I mean it as in … as in I am in love with you. Mind, body, soul, everything."

There, she had said it. There was no going back now. With the first hurdle cleared, it was now far easier for her to pour out her heart.

"I have loved you from the moment we met, and these last months without you made me realize that I need you. I need you more than I need air, and I know you feel the same, I just know it. You ran away, but that doesn't matter. You probably thought this… this 'losing my arm' thing was your fault; that staying would only hurt me. But I don't care. I would do anything for you Blake. _Anything._ Even if it meant facing down the entire White Fang myself, or fighting a herd of Goliaths, or having to go to Port's classes every day for the rest of my life, I'd do it. I'd take on the world for you. I'd do it in a heartbeat because the worst thing in my life wasn't losing my mom, or my step-mom, or my arm, or my friends – it's the just the _thought_ of losing you. So I know what I want now, and that's you. That's why I've gone halfway around the planet to find you again. I will _always_ find you, I promise. I would give an arm and a leg to be with you – and hey, I'm already halfway there."

Yang smiled in the darkness, happy she had finally said what she had been dying to tell Blake since the early days of Team RWBY.

With this weight finally off of her chest, she couldn't control herself and started to cry quietly. She knew she had gotten through, because she could hear Blake quietly sobbing as she drew in a breath as well.

"That's beautiful, I know my daughter would love to hear that," an unfamiliar female voice said. A voice coming right from where 'Blake' was resting.

Yang froze, her heart alternating between being alive with panic and dead with dread.

"Hah, you humans sure do have poor night vision," another voice said, this one a deep and booming man's voice. A man who was in bed next to the woman who Yang was now realizing _wasn't Blake_.

Yang jumped up, landed on her feet, and did the only thing she could think of. She yelled in panic, loud enough to wake the dead and then kill them again. Whatever apologies or words of confusion her mind were trying to force out were instead converted into unintelligible shouts by her vocal cords, only stopping when she heard the sound of footsteps and the loud slamming of a door behind her.

"Mom! Dad! What's... _Yang?_ " an angelic voice asked from behind her, causing Yang to instantly relax. That was a voice she knew. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind now. She had no doubt that this new voice belonged to the faunus who so thoroughly possessed her heart.

"Blake!" she called out, turning to where the voice had come from, and barely making out the outline of a cat-eared beauty in the night.

"Mister B, Missus B!" another voice said as another set of footsteps stopped inside the room, this one decidedly _not_ angelic, but familiar nonetheless to Yang. "Yang?"

"Neptune?" she asked in confusion.  
"What? No, Sun!"

The room grew eerily silent as everyone processed what had happened, trying to make sense of it. Finally, Yang decided to break the quiet pause.

"Can someone turn on the lights?"


	2. Chapter 2

"Uh…." Yang said after Sun conveniently turned on the lights in the bedroom, so that she could see the four sets of eyes all around the room. Four sets of eyes that seemed to be shooting lasers at her.

One set of eyes in particular, though, felt as though it were burning into her very soul.

"Blake…." Yang finally said, breaking the awkward silence. "I missed you. I needed to see you. I need... _you_."

Her former partner let out a slight gasp as she quickly inhaled at the statement. This wasn't how Yang had planned on things going, not even if she had spent a hundred lifetimes planning things out, but she still couldn't help but feel her heart soar. Things were unsure, things were confusing, and things were strange, but none of that seemed to matter now that she had seen Blake.

"I missed you too," Blake answered.

And Sun, her dad, and her mom; she had seen them too – unfortunately - but her heart's reaction was definitely all Blake.

Actually, while there were definitely some pretty important things going on that needed to be addressed, Yang's mind decided to allocate some thought processes to contemplating just how absolutely attractive Blake's mom was. Not as attractive as Blake, of course, but she wasn't _blind_. How old was she? Forty? Fifty? She was obviously older than Blake, but if she didn't know better she would have guessed twenty-five, or thirty at the most.

Certainly not old enough to have an eighteen-year-old daughter. Or was Blake older than that? She had been in the White Fang for a long time, and didn't come from a traditional hunter's school, so had she secretly been older than her seventeen-year-old classmates when they met? It would certainly explain why she had found Blake so much more mature and fascinating than all their classmates. Her mouth hung open slightly as her eyes stared blankly ahead, her brain trying to set itself straight again after considering the possibility that Blake would still look like… like _that_ in three decades.

Her musings on whether or not she had a thing for older women were brought to a crashing halt when she heard the direction the conversation was heading.

"Mom, why are you crying?"

"It was so beautiful," Kali said, bringing a hand up to wipe the tears from her eyes. "Your father didn't say anything so romantic when _he_ proposed."

"PROPOSED?" Yang shouted. "Hold on there I think maybe you're misinterpreting some of what I-" she tried to clarify but was cut off.

"What was all that about wanting to be together forever, then?" Ghira asked.

"And don't forget the mind, body, and soul part. I liked that part," Kali nodded.

"I mean, like, yeah I said forever and stuff like that but… but… it was _not_ a _proposal_ ," Yang stammered out when she managed to regain a sliver of her composure as she looked at Blake, noticing that the cat faunus was blushing bright red by this point. "Unless… unless you're into that sort of – naaaah. Right? Plus, I guess you and Sun…."

Her smile had been shrinking into a frown as she spoke, but as she turned her head towards Sun, all traces of sadness in her eyes were replaced by a red glint.

"Whoa whoa Yang wait we're not together or anything I swear! I know you liked her I didn't do anything we're just friends!" Sun clamored out when Yang's red-eyed gaze shifted towards him. Sun may have been a goofball, but he was still one of the best huntsmen-in-training his age. He had been in the Vytal Festival, after all. Which meant he was quite the intelligent young man. Intelligent enough that he knew three things to be absolute fact. One, Yang had a thing for Blake. Two, Yang was built like a brick shithouse. And three, Yang could get very, _very_ angry.

Yang's frown faded and her eyes regained their lilac tint at his words, and she looked once again to Blake. In all honesty, that had probably been her biggest fear in coming here. Just after the destruction of the CCT, when Sun had told her that Blake had run away, and that he was going after her to make sure she was safe, she had simply stayed behind. At the time her emotions were a tangled mess, and she had been so hurt by Blake deciding to run away from her team – again – that she instead chose to mope. But as each day passed on and she got a little better with accepting her current situation, she also got a little worse with what she imagined the two of them were up to. Part of her knew that Blake loved her back. Part of her was positive that Sun had a thing for Neptune and really did just care about her like a true friend. But part of her would keep her awake at night as she wondered if she was wrong; as she wondered what Sun and Blake could have been doing until she cried herself to sleep.

To her surprise, it was Blake who pulled her close. It was Blake who stood up slightly on the balls of her feet to make up their slight difference in height. And most surprising of all, it was Blake who pressed her lips to Yang's. It was a short thing, lasting only a moment. A kiss meant to prove exactly how she felt, and with the promise of more to come another day. Yang melted into the contact, the memories of her previous worries all but forgotten as she focused on the now. This. This was real. This was important.

"Aww, you guys are so cute together," Sun said, putting a hand on both of their shoulders for an impromptu group hug. In the background, Ghira gave a low chuckle at the boy's interruption while Kali alternated between crying at the touching moment she had witnessed, and suppressed a giggle at the monkey faunus's antics.

"Man, I'm really glad monkey boy. If the two you were doing it, I'd have – well, you know." Yang cleared her throat to avoid having to continue with _that_ train of thought.

"Wait… what would you have done if we _were_?" Blake asked.

"Look Blake, I love you no matter what and would want you to be happy. Even if it's not with me. I'd just wish you the best and then go home and probably cry for a couple days. And then see if Neon's still single." Yang winked at the faunus, before sighing and speaking a little more seriously. "But if that was really your decision, I wouldn't try and do anything to– oh shit, I forgot to-"

With a thump, a figure jumped through the window and into the room just as Yang looked back to where she had entered the building earlier. She groaned as she realized exactly what was coming.

Standing on the ground was a new intruder, a shirtless Neptune wearing incredibly tight black leather pants. The blue-haired boy had a blue flower in his mouth that matched the color of his hair, which he was biting down on as he gave a wink to Sun. When he noticed the others in the room, though, he took a step back and looked at Yang, the flower dropping from his mouth. It was becoming increasingly apparent that this wasn't a teenager's bedroom, and that there were more people than he was expecting. "Uh… Yang I thought it was…. Who are…. Uhhhh."

Yang looked back at a shocked quartet of faunus, and help a hand up to the back of her neck as she gave them a sheepish grin.

"Okay. So maybe I was planning on o _ne_ last try."

* * *

 **Note: This first chapter was just a silly idea I felt like writing out, and once I had it done I figured I might as well upload it. The same with this second chapter. If I get more ideas for things I think are funny, and which can fit this story, I will try to write them up and add them.**


	3. Chapter 3

It seemed as though nobody wanted to break the long and awkward silence that arose between the five people in the room, although Yang wasn't entirely sure if things just seemed to be going unnaturally slow for her. Still, after what felt like hours, Ghira was the one to speak up.

"Look, I understand things are strange right now," the bulky faunus said, his voice booming with a mixture of confidence, frustration, and a hint of sarcasm. "Your tournament got interrupted, terrorists blew up your school, and then you and all your friends got hurt. It's rough, I know. Now call me old-fashioned, but if you're going to break into my bedroom with your stripper friend, try to seduce my wife, and then put your mouth all over my daughter, you _at least_ give yourself a proper introduction."

"Dad!" Blake yelped at his bluntness, but Yang stepped forward, flashing her a grin as she approached the man. It seemed as though his question was just the kick in the pants she needed to get her brain and voice working again.

"Hello, Mr. Belladonna, I'm Yang, I'm your daughter's partner. Sorry about… well… this. I just couldn't wait to see Blake. I travelled a few thousand miles to reach her, I had to rescue my sister and her new team from Mistral, I kind of accidentally beat up Weiss's family to-"

"You what?" Sun exclaimed but Neptune put a hand on his shoulder to pull him back.

"-to get her and my sister to help me reach here, had to force Neptune to get over his fear of water because he wouldn't get on the ferry-"

"Hey I wasn't scared!" Neptune started to interrupt but Sun returned the favor and pulled him back.

"-and had to carve through a lot of grimm, bandits, white fang, and everything else separating us. So I'm really sorry for making a mess of things but… hey, that's how it is."

"Hah, I'm just teasing you kid. What, you think we don't have television here? The Vytal Festival was the only thing airing for a week straight, we know everything about all of you."

"Huh?" Yang half-said, half-exhaled in confusion.

"I just wanted to greet you right. I'm Ghira, and you already met Kali," he said, holding out his hand which Yang shook. His grip was strong and firm, and it seemed as though he was trying to assert a little bit of an intimidating presence by squeezing a little too tightly. The sort of thing any dad would do his little girl's suitor. It was also the sort of thing he realized a too late that it would backfire against him as his hand couldn't compete with the vice grip provided by Yang's hard metal hand. Yang cracked a grin at the man as their eyes locked, sharing a knowing lookg.

When she went to shake Kali's hand, the older woman instead gave her a warm hug. "It's nice to finally meet you."

"Now…." Ghira calmly stated. "Can we get _out_ of my bedroom?"

Simply nodding, Yang took a step back, her back bumping into Blake's chest, the faunus caught off-guard at the unexpected contact.

"Come on, Yang, I'll show you the living room," she said, grabbing her hand and pulling her away.

"So you were gonna try to serenade me away from Blake?" Sun teased Neptune after waiting a moment for Yang to be out of earshot, his lips curling upwards into a massive grin.

"Hey, I didn't have to be a junior detective to know she didn't have to worry, but Yang wanted to account for every possibility, and she needed me for some backup so…" Neptune shuddered involuntarily. "Do _you_ want to be the one saying no to Yang when it involves Blake?"

"Ha, good point."

"Ahem," Ghira cleared his throat.

"Oh, right," Sun said sheepishly to the big man before starting to head out, Neptune in tow. "You should see the fridge here, dude, Menagerie has some pretty good ice cream. It's all locally sourced."

* * *

"I like her," Kali said to her husband when the two were finally alone.

"Hey, it's bad enough she's stealing the heart of one of the women in my life, it better not be both." His comment earned him a playful, yet not-quite-harmless, punch to the shoulder and a grin from his wife.

"You know what I meant," she replied. "These last few weeks have been wonderful, being able to see our baby after so long, but it broke my heart too. You saw how she'd get when she thought nobody was looking. It was like… like she had no hope. Throwing herself into her plans to take back the White Fang because she had nothing else to-"

"Now, now, don't be that way," the big man said, drawing his wife into a comforting hug. "You remember what it was like being a teenager. You have trouble understanding your emotions and feel everything ten times as hard. But Blake's a strong girl, she always has been. She would have been fine in time. Her partner finding her and admitting her feelings – as poorly as she handled it – at least means she won't have that hole in her heart weighing her down so much."

"You're right," Kali sniffled, drawing her wrist up to wipe her eyes with her pajama sleeve. "You know, you try and act so big and tough and wise, but I know you're just dying inside to know more like a gossiping schoolgirl."

"At least _I'm_ not the one who broke the door trying to eavesdrop on her last month," Ghira replied. "Although… I guess if this makes me the father of a teenager with a new girlfriend, I can say I'm glad I don't have your ears – and your hearing."

Kali's smile turned grim as she looked from her husband, to the door of her bedroom, to the door of her daughter's bedroom across the hallway.

* * *

"So..."

"So…."

Blake and Yang sat next to each other on the couch, neither one quite sure how to start the conversation. Whether by intention, coincidence, or providence, Blake had steered them towards a plush loveseat in the living room, though the aptly-named piece of furniture wasn't helping stimulate discussion.

Suddenly, Yang snickered, and Blake turned around to see what she was looking at. She had heard Sun and Neptune approaching on their way to the kitchen, but now that she saw them she noticed that the faunus was veritably dragging the other boy along.

"He just bought a gallon of peanut butter banana ice cream today. They're not leaving that kitchen for at least half an hour." Blake snickered.

Yang smiled, glad to see Blake getting out of her shell, if even for just a moment. Which reminded her….

"Holy shit, I still can't believe you kissed me!" she exclaimed, causing Blake to blush. The girl took a deep breath to regain her composure, smiling when she realized exactly how to respond.

"Well… I couldn't lose you to my mom," Blake finally teased back.

"Hey no fair! It was dark… and I was in a hurry," Yang said, deflated.

"I know… I just know you like it when I'm feisty," she winked at the blonde. "And… and I'm glad you still like me. I was afraid you'd hate me when I… after I-"

Yang was on her feet in an instant, kicking against the ground to shove herself across the loveseat and onto her partner, gripping her fiercely in her arms. "No. Never. The past sucks, but you're here now."

Blake gasped, burying her eyes in the crook of Yang's neck and letting the warmth envelop her.

"But all I do is hurt you," Blake whispered softly after a few minutes. "I abandoned you. And your arm! Your arm…."

"It's nothing," Yang said, not releasing the faunus from her embrace, her voice slightly muffled from Blake's head. "The only thing that hurts is not having you. Promise you'll stay with me this time, that's all I need."

"Why aren't you angry?"

"I already know what it's like always being angry. Hell, my semblance is all about anger, it's like even my soul is always pissed off." Yang pressed her lips to Blake's forehead for a quick kiss. "When you left I was so angry I felt like ripping the house in half and stomping out. But that anger was just hiding that part of me was missing. When I think about you, when I'm with you, what's there to be angry about? I missed you so much, I don't want to waste my time fighting with you. I don't want to get angry at you and be the reason you cry. I want to just _be_ with you. I want to be able to hold you."

"I… I'd like that," Blake responded by tightening the hug.

"I'd like to be able to kiss you."

"I'd like that too."

Yang brought her mouth down to Blake's and gave her a quick peck on the lips.

"And…." Yang smirked, her chin rubbing against Blake's cheek as her face slowly made its way up. "I'd like to…."

"Oh God, Yang, really?" Blake groand, embarrassed. She knew Yang enough to know what was coming.

"…eat up those adorable kitty ears on your head." True to her word, Yang gave a brief, playful lick to one of Blake's faunus ears, before leaning in so she could whisper into it. "I love everything about you Blake. Seeing you hide yourself with that bow, it just makes me hate that the world makes you feel ashamed of them. Your beautiful ears, I bet they can hear my heart pounding right now because I'm saying way more than I ever though I would to you but I haven't slept in a week so it's making me crazy and ha I guess now I'm rambling…."

"I hear it, Yang," Blake whispered back. "I hear your heart."

She took a deep, calming breath. One in, one out.

"I also hear my parents listening in around the corner!"

* * *

Kali held back a giggle as she listened in. It seemed as though her daughter's partner had a thing for ears. Previously, she had only ever seen team RWBY on the television during the Vytal festival, but seeing Yang in-person and how strongly she felt about Blake gave her a sense of unparalleled joy. She had been so worried that after Adam, the White Fang, and the fall of Beacon, it would be hard for the girl to ever be happy again, only to see her practically melting.

She was so focused on the scene, in fact, that she was taken aback when Blake suddenly shouted that she could hear her. She had been so careful too, she didn't want a repeat of just a few weeks ago when she was listening in and… _Ghira_.

It wasn't her mother that Blake had detected, it was her father. And Kali could see the hulking, boisterous faunus poorly hiding himself against the corner just before the living room, his breathing loud and his feet careless.

"Honey, did you get the ice cream yet?" she called loudly, thinking quickly and decided that a little white lie would be her best way of trying to at least save _some_ degree of her husband's dignity.

* * *

Sun looked at Neptune.

Neptune looked at Sun.

Both looked at the empty carton of peanut butter and banana ice cream in front of them.

Both looked at the empty carton of Kali's off-limits emergency vanilla bean ice cream.

Wordlessly, Sun approached the kitchen window, opening it, before jumping out and running away, Neptune right behind.


	4. Chapter 4

"Oh, hey kids, just getting a midnight snack," Ghira stated sheepishly to the two girls on the sofa.

The only response he got in return was a pair of piercing glares.

"Hey! I wasn't the one who broke into someone's house tonight, don't make me the bad guy here!"

Blake continued to glare at him, though Yang couldn't help but cough and try to avert her gaze. The man did have a point, after all.

"Yeah a snack sounds good," Yang finally relented, eliciting a sigh of relief from Ghira as she stood up and took Blake's hand in her own, leading her to the kitchen. The Belladona patriarch followed behind, slightly grinning. Kali may have said it to save his ass, but ice cream did indeed sound good right about now.

His smile curled downwards as he entered the room, though, his eyes bulging at the state of the kitchen and his body locking up in fear. A few feet ahead, Blake was equally frozen.

"What?" Yang asked. "Blake? …Blake? BLAKE!"

"Yang, shhh," Blake said, pointing at the table.

"What? It's just an empty carton of-"

Before Yang could say another syllable, Blake moved with a speed she had never seen before, covering the distance between them in an instant and clamping her hands over the blonde's mouth. The faunus looked at her with such a serious fire in her eyes that Yang briefly found herself wondering if Blake had stolen her semblance.

Blake shook her head slowly, then withdrew a hand to point at the window, then making gestures with it to indicate Yang needed to be quiet and get out. If she had any doubts, Ghira had already jumped through it, the big man moving astoundingly quietly compared to his earlier buffoonery.

* * *

"Mister B, Mister B, how's it going?" the cashier asked from his place behind the counter. Yang thought that the man was surprisingly chipper for working graveyard shift at a corner store, but faunus had great night vision so maybe that translated into a more active nightlife. She was positive she saw a few restaurants and bars still open on the way in – it was a little hard to tell with how fast the two Belladonnas had been forcing her to sprint to the store – but she made a mental note to keep those in mind if she wanted to ask Blake on a date.

"I'll let you know once we manage to replace Kali's ice cream," Ghira replied, apparently known as the so-called Mister B. "I really need to get some ice cream now and leave, so I have to cut things short."

"Naaaah, forget about it, Sun just left with that blue-haired friend of his, big old bags filled with one of every type of vanilla we sell," he replied. "Couldn't remember the brand so they got everything and then ran away like a packa' Grimm were on their tails. Which means the only crisis you need to worry about is why you haven't yet introduced me to the new girl."

"Oh uh, this is Yang, she's Blake's… girlfriend?" Ghira looked at Blake for confirmation, getting a shrug in response, while Yang gave him a pair of thumbs-ups.

"Oh girlfriend huh? Haven't seen you around before, how long have you two been dating?" the cashier asked Yang with a gaze that seemed a little too judgmental for her liking.

She knew exactly what this was.

It wasn't quite clear what caused the phenomenon she was witnessing, but she had seen and heard about it enough with friends in the past to recognize it. For some reason when a guy and a girl started dating, the girl's extended family and friends started to come out of the woodwork to try and assert some sort of protector status in her life. Third cousins, former neighbors, mailmen, the veritable bottom of the barrel when it came to people with the loosest connection to the girl in question – they all had to say their peace.

Seriously, Blake left home for years, had only been back a matter of months, probably never spoke to this guy beyond 'I have a coupon for the tuna', and he still felt some sort of need to give approval on who she dated? If he said something stupid like 'if you ever hurt her' she felt like she would have trouble resisting the urge to clobber him right in the face.

Although, as she mused in amusement, that meant that people seemed to think she was the man in the relationship. Probably because of her biceps. She supposed she at least would look good in a suit. Wearing a suit meant that Blake would be the one wearing a dress….

Wait, right, he had asked her something. No need getting worked up and making up weird backstories in her mind about random cashiers.

"Uhh, about…" Yang stalled, looking up at the big clock on the store's front wall. "Forty five minutes or so?"

* * *

"Honey, here's that ice cream you asked for, which was the reason I went to the kitchen," Ghira said loudly from the hallway, giving Yang and Blake a wink. Yang returned his gesture with a thumbs-up, while Blake simply sighed.

There was no response, though as he approached the door Ghira could hear laughter. Walking through the threshold, he saw Sun and Neptune were seated on their bedroom sofa, while Kali sat on the nearby desk, all three individuals drinking hot tea from mugs. Behind her was an empty bowl with a spoon in it.

Sun paused in the middle of whatever story he was telling, and looked up at the big man.

"Normally a husband walks in on his wife and two shirtless boys in the middle of the night, he has a few questions," Ghira said, dumbfounded.

The three of them burst out laughing again.

* * *

"So I guess we've got some privacy again…." Blake coughed, trying to cover up the squeak in her voice.

"Huh, yeah," Yang replied.

"So…."

"So…."

"Forty-five minutes?"

"Hey!" Yang replied. "I was being honest!"

Blake couldn't help but laugh at that. Half a year and half her arms missing, but she was still Yang, of that she was certain.

"Don't mind me."

Turning around, the two girls saw that Blake's father had quickly returned from the bedroom and was walking right past them. Without any other comments after his first one, he curled up into another sofa in the living room, faced the seat back, and fell asleep in what seemed like an instant.

"Is he…?" Yang whispered.

Grabbing the blonde's hand, Blake pulled her away from the living room for the second time that night. Yang wasn't familiar with the layout of the house, but after a few seconds they entered a new room and she realized she was now standing in Blake's bedroom.


	5. Chapter 5

Rolling over in bed, Ghira found his hand running over a decidedly empty section of mattress. That was odd, normally he was an early riser. Rolling over again so that he could face his alarm clock, his eyes widened as he looked at the time.

10:00 AM.

How had he slept in so long? Mind drawing a blank for a few moments, he sat up suddenly as he remembered _exactly_ what had kept him awake for a few hours the night before. He wasn't in bed at all! He was on the damn sofa in the living room, and the reason his alarm clock hadn't woken him up was because it was in his room – probably with his scroll – and he was looking at the clock in his living room instead.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," Kali said from nearby, seated at an armchair with a book and a cup of tea.

"Ugh… what happened to our guests?" he asked.

"Oh, you know," Kali gave him an amused smile and a wink, then tilted her head back as she indicated the hallway behind her. "Yang and Blake are still in her room."

Before he could say anything in response, there was a knock at his door. Leaving Kali to her book, he went and opened the thing so he could tell whoever was there to beat it.

A pair of girls were standing on the other side. Both had black hair, one with red highlights and silver eyes, the other with white highlights and a scar over an eye.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Eeep!" the red one yelped before composing herself. "Ummm…. Umm, I think my sister was here last night, and she didn't come back to meet us, I was getting worried… Yang, her name's Yang, have you seen her?"

Ghira blinked. Yang's sister? But her sister was a small frail-looking girl from what he could recall of the Vytal Tournament broadcasts… from a year ago. If you figured she spent the last year fighting her way through Grimm, added a couple inches, and changed the wardrobe and hair a bit….

"So you're Ruby and Weiss, aren't you," he stated plainly.

"What! I told you this was a stupid disguise Ruby!" Weiss shouted, looking back over her shoulders nervously.

"Relax kid, you're safe here, you could've fooled me with that hair of yours. It's just not too hard to figure things out if you're here with this girl, while her sister's with my daughter. And then there was the Vytal Festival. You do realize we have televisions out here too… right?"

"Oh! So she is here! That's a relief," Ruby said, exhaling a breath she had been partially holding.

"Yeah."

"Uh huuuuuuh…." Ruby looked up at the Faunus with a pleading look.

Ghira sighed. "Would you like to come in? Seems like everyone _else_ is making themselves at home lately."

"Yes! Thank you! Awesome!" Ruby squealed, pushing her way right alongside the man and rushing into the house.

"I'm sorry about Ruby doing that, but if you don't have a problem with me being a…" Weiss once again looked over her shoulders before whispering out a single word. " _Schnee_ …. Then, well. You understand."

"Bah!" Ghira laughed. "Your dad's an asshole but my daughter likes you enough, nothing I can do," he said.

"That's all?" Weiss asked with a hint of confusion.

"What? Were you expecting me to judge you because of how you were born? I didn't start the White Fang just to start a different brand of discrimination, after all."

"YOU STARTED-" Weiss nervously looked over her shoulders again. "You started the White Fang? But, but, they are-"

"I started it, someone corrupted it," Ghira said. "You could say it was like the SDC – they treated Faunus well enough until your old man took over – no offense to you, kid. So you going to keep standing there playing twenty questions or are you going to come inside so I can figure out what the hell that noise is?"

"Huh?" Weiss asked. She listened more carefully. Sure enough, it sounded like…

"RUBY!" she shouted, running into the house and nearly shoving her way past Ghira. Looking in the house, she saw Blake sitting down in the living room, calmly reading a book with a smirk on her face – her face! That wasn't Blake, that was…. Someone. Blake never mentioned having a sister. Though if she thought about her own relationship with Winter, she supposed it wasn't all that odd for someone to avoid mentioning their older sister to their team. But that still didn't tell her where Ruby's shouting was coming from, which led her to another area in the house. The kitchen.

Ruby had her hands and face pressed up against the oven, looking in only for moments at a time before it got too hot and she had to pull away from it – but only for a second, as she pressed herself right back against it. All thanks to the wonders of aura, it seemed. As she did that, Ruby was excitedly yelping something out unintelligibly.

"Ruby what in the…."

"She's making cookies!"

"If I had known she would react this way when I told her I was making some, I would have had my scroll ready." Kali nearly snuck up behind Weiss, half-startling the heiress. As she spoke, her scroll came out and she was pointing the front of it at Ruby. "Blake hasn't acted this cute in years," she added with a sigh.

"What about Yang?" Weiss said to Ruby, ignoring whatever was going on with the older Faunus. One problem at a time. That was the only way she was going to preserve her sanity. One problem at a time.

Clearing her throat and rubbing her temples, Weiss decided to simply get to the bottom of things. "We simply wanted to check on Yang. We haven't seen her since last night and last we knew she came here to see your… sister?"

"Daughter."

"…daughter, right." Weiss stated. "So in any case, we just wanted to see if she was… here…."

Weiss let her sentence die off, suddenly at a loss for words. There, coming down the hallway, and wearing nothing more than a bright orange shirt and a pair of panties, was a half-asleep Yang. With her eyes nearly shut, Yang slowly walked up to the refrigerator, opened it, withdrew a water bottle, and closed the door. By this time Kali had turned around to see why Weiss had stopped talking, and found herself equally incapable of saying anything.

Groggily, Yang walked past the two women in the kitchen, continued down the hall, entered a bedroom, and shut the door.

It was at that moment that the timer on Kali's scroll went off.

"COOKIES!" Ruby shouted, her face having never left the oven.


End file.
